Two Wrongs Make A Right
by sonikkugirl8
Summary: The Fenton Ghost Catcher is a fascinating gadget, able to separate a ghost's very core, to create two halves to one whole. Maddie desperately needed to remind Jack that the device wasn't a toy, however, her baby not the batteries it needed to run. 'What's the worst that could happen', he told her. What's the worst that could happen, indeed... Post PP, Eventual Pitch Pearl
1. Prologue

Prologue

The night air was crisp and cool that particular summer evening, a far cry from the usual warm, humid nights that permeated the air within Amity. Not one citizen knew where to turn for the cause; maybe a recent, unannounced cold snap swept through the town in an effort to protect all from sweating like pigs. Perhaps the weather ghost, Vortex, was having some sort of hissy fit, leading the town hero, Danny Phantom, to attempt to stop him.

No one expected the hero himself to be the cause.

Those walking home from their jobs or a day of activities through the park would find a despondent and depressed Phantom, silently weeping to himself against a tree. He seemed to have no control over his ice core in his current state, leading the air to become chilled around him. Some would try to approach him, ask him what was wrong, but he would only either start crying more hysterically or flee; people decided to leave him alone after he nearly sent an ecto blast careening into a young girl in a panic. Not once was he able to answer in a coherent sentence.

He looked severely injured, like he had just escaped an explosion somewhere. Burns covered his body up and down, some beginning to blister. His normally bright aura had all but faded away, and his eyes were wild, constantly darting around whenever he looked up from his sobbing fits after hearing a sudden noise. His appearance overall was reminiscent of a frightened, injured animal.

" _Danny?!_ " Phantom's head darted up at the call, head shooting around frantically to try and detect its source. In a fit of panic, he fired ecto blasts left and right at random, hoping to hit whoever or whatever was fast approaching him. It failed, and the source showed itself minutes later: a little two-man search party.

Phantom whimpered as he gazed up with unfocused eyes at the party, both sporting worrying looks of their own at him.

"There you are, son…"

"Sweetheart, it's going to be alright…"

He couldn't process any of what they were saying, mind too scrambled to perform the daunting task. Instead, he let out another whine and backed slowly into the tree he occupied, eyes screwed tightly shut. His body tightened when he felt a sudden warmth on his shoulder. Phantom's eyes shot open, and he swiped at the offender in self-defense before flying away as fast as he could.

Little did he know, the offenders were only trying to help him.

* * *

"Damn it, Jack, why did you touch him?!" Maddie Fenton cried in frustration, very upset that Phantom had gotten away when they were so close.

"I'm sorry, I thought it would have calmed him down," Jack Fenton replied softly to his fuming wife, but he knew he should have known better; the ghost was in no condition to handle a sudden touch like that, even if it came from someone of his own family.

Especially when it was their own fault to begin with.

"Don't worry, Mads. We'll find him again."

Maddie simply groaned in response, stressed at having to track down her child as if he were a feral, rabid animal. With that, they packed their gear and took off once again in their Ghost Assault Vehicle, ready to search all night in order to find Phantom.

Maddie turned around and looked in the back of the GAV. There, she witnessed the scene of her daughter, Jazz, comforting a deeply sleeping Danny Fenton. Danny sported similar injuries to Phantom, having taken the brunt of it all due to being in human form at the time of the… the 'accident' was all the family was willing to call it. Danny stirred and awoke for a few moments, staring blankly at his mother in the front seat as if in a trance before nodding back off uneventfully. The boy had been like this since the aftermath of the 'accident', soft-spoken when they managed to get him to speak, answering with only one or two words, and in a detached state the entire time. He would fall asleep if no one paid particular attention to him, or simply stare off into space in his own world.

To think a simple Ghost Catcher malfunction would turn one half of her baby borderline catatonic and the other into a terrified and feral full ghost…

* * *

 _ **I now present to you my attempt at trying to write a really screwed up Pitch Pearl. I was planning on writing something really mushy and romantic, but my love for all things angst won out.**_

 _ **This should really go without saying, but I am now and forever not Butch Hartman. YOU HEAR THAT, NICK LAWYERS?!**_


	2. Chapter 1- The 'Accident'

_**(To confirm timelines and ages [I know I should have probably done this last chapter, but what're ya gonna do?], I believe that Phantom Planet took place towards the middle of Danny's sophomore year, sometime in early March. This would make Danny 15 and Jazz either 17 or 18. This story currently takes place towards the final weeks of summer vacation; Danny is 16 and Jazz is 18 and close to heading off to college. I figured even though she could get into any college she wanted, she would pick somewhere close to home so she could still watch over her little brother. Though the secret is out and the Fentons spend more time together as a result, Jazz is still an important source of emotional support.)**_

Chapter 1- The 'Accident'

It was five in the morning the next day before the family decided to call it quits in order to rest; they had nothing to worry about so long as Phantom managed to isolate himself.

The RV ride home was silent, save for a few murmurs from Danny in the back. Jack clutched the wheel tightly and Jazz stared longingly out the window, looking for any signs of where the now full ghost had gone, while Maddie sat brooding. She was not-so-secretly livid with her husband. The one time they had found Phantom that night, and Jack had to go and scare him off; he should have known better than to approach like that. It's _his_ fault Danny split apart in the first place. If only she had listened to the little voice in her head telling her the whole thing was insane, she wouldn't have let Jack make those 'upgrades'.

Maddie sighed and calmed down, realizing they were all slightly to blame: Jack for coming up with the idea; Maddie for letting him go through with it; Jazz for deciding it would be the perfect time to leave and scope out the local university in preparation for attendance so she couldn't talk Danny out of participating; Danny for allowing Jack to use him as a guinea pig, comfortable enough with their experiments to not really think much of it when his parents needed him.

The GAV slowly came to a stop in front of Fenton Works. From a front view, the house looked perfectly normal, or at least normal for what the town came to see of the home of the ghost hunting couple and their heroic children. The inside of the building, however, especially the lab, looked like ground zero of a small nuclear blast; the walls came off of the foundation, any unsecured objects launched and destroyed. How it remained contained inside of the building and didn't blow the four main walls from their bearings, none of them knew. It didn't matter in the long run, really.

Jack had to half-carry Danny up the stairs, due to the latter simply standing in place outside and staring intensely at the Fenton Works sign trying to figure out where he was. Jazz had to stand next to the pair the entire time because she was the only one Danny felt comfortable around. Something about the amount of trust placed in her while his ghost form was still a secret, Jack surmised.

After placing the despondent teenager gently in his room, Jack and Jazz went to join Maddie down in the lab, all in awe in the destruction left behind due to the 'accident'. The moniker replaced the name for the Fenton Ghost Portal incident because at least with that one, it gave the youngest Fenton superpowers and turned him into the amazing person he was now. This one, called the 'Neo Accident' or the 'Catcher Accident', painfully ripped their son in half. Everything was so carefully planned, the settings checked and double checked and then checked again. How could it have gone so wrong…?

* * *

 _The husband/wife duo were sitting alone in the lab the previous morning. It was Saturday, family fun day, and they knew they should have been sleeping in preparation, but with their latest project, they just couldn't rest until it was complete. In front of them was one of their older inventions, the Fenton Ghost Catcher, an effective tool to forcibly reverse the process of overshadowing. An idea had came to Jack the day before, and he was desperate to bring it into fruition._

" _What if we could tweak the Ghost Catcher so that if Danny-boy needed to, he could separate himself and have both halves keep the same personality. He wouldn't have to waste energy on duplicating himself!" Jack said eagerly to his wife, always happy to find new ways to aid his half-ghost son._

 _Maddie sighed with a chuckle to herself, reflecting on the enthusiasm now that the job was nearly complete. Danny had told them a story of the time that technology ghost, Technus, took over their house, and what transpired with the Ghost Catcher then. It had split Danny into two halves, one a campy superhero ghost, the other a lazy and carefree human. Since then, Jack had been fixated on the invention non-stop, lulling Danny to sleep a few times at the dinner table with the talk._

 _Around noon, the upgrade was complete, and the Ghost Catcher lie in the middle of the basement lab, ready to be used. As they were about to go into the Ghost Zone to look for a test subject, Danny came down, groggy and had no doubt just woken up. "Mom, we got any muffins left…?" he softly asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes._

 _Seeing the actual intended user of the Catcher made Jack more inclined for him to test it out himself. "Heya, Danno!" Jack said, interrupting Maddie as she was about to explain her future shopping plans. "Come look to the upgrade we did to the old Ghost Catcher."_

 _Danny tilted his head, honestly curious. His parents had been keeping the upgrade a secret, and now that it was finally ready, he couldn't help himself. "Upgrade?"_

 _With great speed, Jack pulled his sleepy son down the steps and placed him in front of it for a view of the device._

" _Ain't it a beauty?" Jack patted the catcher with his characteristic 'gentleness', jostling loose a wire or two. Normally a non issue, but as they soon learned, the misplaced wires were for a very crucial part of the machine: the area that controls the split mechanic. With the wires loose, settings were altered, microscopic number differences that held drastic consequences, and the catcher was rendered unsafe for even the bulkiest of ghosts._

 _But Jack and Maddie never noticed due to beaming at their half-ghost son at the time._

" _We stayed up all night so you could get as much use out of it as possible."_

" _Yep. With it, you might not even have to duplicate yourself anymore. You could use the energy for other stuff, like stronger attacks or late night trips to get your old man some fudge." Jack licked his lips at the joking thought, causing Maddie to mock-scold him and Danny to roll his eyes. "So whaddya say, son? Wanna give it a go?"_

 _Even though he had finally learned duplication, it didn't hurt that his parents had worked so hard on altering an invention to assist him. He supposed a little extra help didn't hurt. And with their record of 'Things Not Accidentally Shooting At Him' at its highest, he felt comfortable at least trusting them with this._

 _Danny smirked at the puppy dog look his father gave him and nodded. "Okay Dad. I'll try it out." He was met with a slap on the back and a proud, loud 'That's my boy!'_

 _The whole thing was set up for disaster, and yet no one noticed._

 _Danny hopped into it in his normal human form, assured that nothing would come to harm him outside of his more durable ghost form._

 _Jack and Maddie's grins of excitement grew, only to fall rapidly at the first few seconds of a pained scream of agony ripping through the room,_

 _Their only warning before the malfunction made the Ghost Catcher go kaboom,_

 _Leaving two twitching, burned, unconscious Dannys in its wake._


End file.
